Ezekiel 18:1-32

God's Equity vindicated

The popular view of Israel's calamities, as expressed in a current proverb, was that they were the punishment of the sins of former generations. Though there was a measure of truth in this, the proverb was used in a false and mischievous sense. It led the present generation to ignore their own sin, to doubt the justice of God's providence, to despair of escape from the working of a blind fate. Ezekiel, consequently, emphasised in the strongest way the truths of individual responsibility, and of God's impartiality in dealing with every man according to his own character (Ezekiel 18:1). If a man is righteous he shall live (Ezekiel 18:5). If a righteous man has a wicked son, the son will not be saved by his father's righteousness, but will die (Ezekiel 18:10). If this wicked man, in turn, has a righteous son, the latter will not die for his father's sin, but will live (Ezekiel 18:14). Further, a wicked man who repents and becomes righteous will live (Ezekiel 18:21; Ezekiel 18:27), and a righteous man who becomes wicked will die (Ezekiel 18:24; Ezekiel 18:26). All this is unquestionably just, and God does not wish any to die, but appeals to all to forsake sin and live (Ezekiel 18:19; Ezekiel 18:23; Ezekiel 18:25; Ezekiel 18:29). This chapter recalls Ezekiel 3:17, and the teaching of both passages is repeated in Ezekiel 33:1.